


Finding Home Beneath the Arm of a Yakuza

by bible



Category: JUDGE EYES: 死神の遺言 | Judgment, 龍が如く | Ryuu ga Gotoku | Yakuza (Video Games)
Genre: Arcades, Codependency, Hurt/Comfort, Implied Relationships, M/M, No Spoilers, i cant believe sega made sonic and knuckles into humans wow
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-11
Updated: 2019-07-11
Packaged: 2020-06-26 16:39:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,299
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19772215
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bible/pseuds/bible
Summary: Was Kaito thinking the same as him, laying in his bed with a sleepless stare pointed at the ceiling, watching the blades of his fan whir as quick as his heartbeat, imagining Yagami’s eyes gouged out?





	Finding Home Beneath the Arm of a Yakuza

“Can’t sleep?”

Yagami jumps, pulling up on the handles of the Motor Raid play bike, and promptly sends Robin boosting furiously ahead on the screen, passing the finish line. He looks over his shoulder and sags in relief when he sees Kaito approaching from behind, in his perpetually glitzy silk shirt, reflecting polychromatic splotches of arcade game light.

“No. Why’re you here?”

“Same as you,” Kaito runs a hand over his short hair, scratches his scalp.

Yagami looks back at the screen, and slouches over the handles of the fake motorcycle. “You don’t need to be worried about me, Kaito.”

“No?”

“I can hold my own.”

Yagami’s hands tighten. He feels his blood throb in his wrists, his palms, tries to focus on the game in front of him. Was Kaito thinking the same as him, laying in his bed with a sleepless stare pointed at the ceiling, watching the blades of his fan whir as quick as his heartbeat, imagining Yagami’s eyes gouged out?

Yagami had only gotten an hour of sleep before he jerked awake from a nauseating dream. It was September and the snow had been falling outside his office, hot and mushy and icy all at once, the air a sickening combination of burn and humidity. He was sitting at his desk with a bowl of raw eggs cracked inside of it, and he was using plastic chopsticks in an attempt to eat them. He kept lifting the white goo, balancing a strangely sturdy yolk upon the chopsticks, and bringing them to his lips.

But before he could eat them, they’d slip between the utensils and frustratingly plop back into the gelatinous clear mucus of the whites. In frustration, he stabbed a yolk and split it open, only to find a perfectly intact eyeball inside, small and with a black iris.

He was still sweaty beneath his leather jacket.

“I was going to play a hand of poker, but… I didn’t want to risk anymore. I got enough anxiety.”

Yagami throws him a cocked brow over his shoulder, lips quirking in an attempt to lighten the mood, and affects his best nineteen-fifties kid accent, “Gee, pops! You don’t gotta worry about lil ol’ me.”

“Someone’s got to, since you aren’t taking care of yourself.”

Yagami’s smile drops when Kaito’s plush lips fail to grin at his lame attempt at a joke. He sighs and sits up, still straddling the bike and listening to the digital, tinny arcade noises play over and over.

“Come here.”

Kaito approaches him and looks at him with these hitched brows, a frown line uncharacteristically deepening his broad forehead. It hurts Yagami, seeing his giant, smug asshole of a friend look like a nervous puppy who’s just been yelled at. Yagami scoots forward and pats the small space behind him on the bike.

“Come sit.”

Kaito’s face softens at that and he throws a strong leg over the white plastic, scooting up warmly against Yagami’s back. If the cold end of the sofa wasn’t comforting, Kaito’s heat-exuding muscle mass and the smell of cheap cologne sure does.

He relaxes already, glad that the arcade is relatively empty, save for the clerk bent over her cell phone downstairs. He isn’t an _insecure_ person by any means, but Yagami isn’t in the mood for stares. His thudding chest slows its pounding and he exhales.

“We’re gonna break the bike,” Kaito chuckles, resting his chin on Yagami’s shoulder to watch him play Motor Raid. He wraps his arm around Yagami’s middle and then grunts when he feels the jut of his ribcage through his thin, cotton t-shirt. “Maybe not. You’re getting too skinny, Ta-bo. Need to eat better.”

Yagami clicks his tongue, “I’m not ‘getting skinny.’ I’m too…”

“Anxious to eat?”

He nods. He can feel Kaito’s throat bob against his shoulder, can feel the words vibrate against his jacket. There’s always been this comfort with Kaito that he can’t bring himself to find with anyone else he’s met, even the people he’s dated. Even if Kaito wasn’t handsome and even if he wasn’t as protective and gentle as he is, they’ve always shared their particular sense of humor and likeness. Their tendency to go all-out in every aspect of life unites them. They’re strange, unstoppable, overly ambitious kids. They were when they were fifteen and they still are twenty years later. It’s easy to rest with Kaito around, even when the odds against them are stacked unrealistically high. Kaito’s all strength and assurance, his frame always open and easy to tuck into.

After Emi-chan died, after the guilt began to bloom in Yagami’s gut as horribly as a disease, it became almost routine to recover with Kaito around. Yagami was borderline _codependent_ around that time, hiding from his past job and burning through what savings he’d made as a lawyer all too fast and recklessly. Somewhere along the way, he felt only Kaito could help him recover. The in-between stage of lawyer and detective had Yagami finding home beneath the arm of a yakuza. It didn’t matter when; Kaito could be straight out of the gym, sweat-damp and pungent, and Yagami would still jut his shoulder beneath his armpit and tuck his worn-out face in his neck, desperate to hide from everything with him.

He’s a tall guy, but he feels as small and protected as a baby kangaroo when Kaito spoons him like this. He doesn’t know what it is—it’s not exciting in the way you’d expect, as if it’s a fresh new romance. It’s just like home.

“Easier to play it when you control the speed and the lever and I tilt the bike, right?”

“I don’t know about th—”

Yagami laughs when Kaito puts all the weight onto the left, throwing his character way too far on the side of the ramp on screen. He soars to last place easily.

“Fuck you,” Yagami says, thumbing through his pocket to insert new coins as the game over screen plays bright and mocking.

“You wish.”

“Yeah? Not tonight.”

“Why not?”

Yagami just hisses a laugh between his teeth, but Kaito presses his lips up way too wetly against his ear, smacking loudly. He can feel the scratch of his facial hair, the warmth of his saliva. Yagami’s neck stiffens and he jerks away, disgust wrinkling his nose. There’s still a smile twitching at his lips.

Kaito says, “Come on. You’ve lost so much weight that I bet you could see my dick bulge in your stomach now, like when we were in our twenties.”

“Are you saying I got fat in my thirties?”

“Yes.”

Yagami snickers and elbows him in the chest in mock-offense, but there’s no commitment behind it. “I’m not horny. Actually, I’m hungry.” It’s true. In the short time between sweating out a feverish anxiety over Motor Raid and Kaito snuggling up behind him, he’s seemed to calm down enough to find his appetite once again.

“Good. You’ll stay at mine, right? I can whip you up some omurice real quick.”

“Nah. No eggs.”

“Fine, I’ll make you a fucking steak, get _some_ sort of meat in you since you won’t take mine.”

Yagami’s laughing again, a real, genuine laugh that makes his eyes crease, makes the character select screen warp in his teary vision. He turns to face Kaito and cocks an eyebrow. “Okay. I’ll stay at yours.”

He doesn’t get to play his first round as Kaito stands up and seizes Yagami’s lanky frame in his arms, lifting him off the bike as the detective protests half-assedly. As they head out into the cool December neon, he starts to feel tiredness reassert itself in his frame, a welcome sensation.

He may die any day now, but he’ll get another night of good sleep before he does.

**Author's Note:**

> i actually haven't finished the game yet so if anything i've said is inaccurate i'm sorry..... i just already love them so much i couldn't not write it  
> also i know they call him 'tak' in the subtitles but they SAY 'ta-bo' i have EARS and it's CUTER
> 
> [take my carrd](https://bibles.carrd.co/)


End file.
